Blanket sleeves in printing machines promote a quite and smooth pay out from successive printing machine cylinders as a result of the absence of a disruption by gripping channels which are usually present on the circumference of printing and transfer cylinders.
DE 199 50 643 A1 discloses a sleeve with a four-layer overall structure for a web-fed offset rotary printing press. The sleeve according to DE 199 50 643 A1 has an internal layer designed as a support layer, namely a metal sheath, as well as an external layer designed as cover and used for the print transfer, where two additional layers being provided between the support layer and the cover layer. The internal support layer is adjacent to a compressible layer, while the external cover layer is adjacent to a layer made of an inelastic material. The compressible layer adjacent to the support layer and the layer made of inelastic material adjacent to the cover layer are connected to each other. Such a four-layer sleeve design requires considerable manufacturing effort and is therefore expensive.